Title and Setting frequently taken for granted, yet both can provide important clues for understanding a work's deeper meanings

Titles perform any of three roles: Titles . . . • State a story's theme • Point to a key aspect of a story • Highlight a story's irony

Title stating theme, example: The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) — Despite his lower-class origins and tawdry past, Gatsby achieves a sort of greatness at the end of the novel when he takes the blame for Daisy—she who is cut from finer cloth. As the title suggests, innate decency and honor trump class, always.

Title pointing to key aspect, example: Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) — The title draws attention to the character flaws that keep Elizabeth and Darcy apart. Both must attain self-knowledge and overcome their pride and prejudices before they can be joined together.

Title highlighting irony, example: "Good Country People," — a famous story by Flannery O'Connor, concerns a family whose members are petty, prideful, and self-absorbed— hardly the "good people" the title refers to.

Settings Settings are easy to overlook, but authors choose them for specific reasons. Aspects of settings: • Location • Time • Culture • Physical surroundings

Setting: location Location is where the events of a story take place. A story may have multiple locations. • Inside or out • Rural or urban areas • Geographical areas The sniper is set outside, on the rooftops. This isolates the main characters from the rest of the world and adds danger. The story takes place in the city, where the fighting is fierce. It’s important that the story takes place in Dublin.

Setting: time Time, in terms of setting, is when the events of the story take place. A story may have multiple time frames. • Time of day • Season • Year or historical period The Sniper takes place in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, on a June evening.

Setting: culture Cultural settings reflect the social milieu in which the characters act out the events of the story. They include: • Religious values • Social mores • Political beliefs • Philosophical outlook Irish Republicans and Irish nationalists had fought for independence from the UK together. Civil War broke out over the conditions in the Treaty and former friends and neighbours became enemies.

Setting: physical Physical setting is the outward environment or physical landmarks surrounding the events of a story. • Weather • Topography (mountains, lakes, rivers) • Architecture "Young Goodman Brown," one of Nathaniel Hawthorne's most famous stories, takes place in a dark, thickly wooded forest, mirroring the spiritual turmoil of the protagonist.

Purpose of Setting Authors might choose their settings in order to establish any of 3 basic elements: • Mood • Motivation • Theme

Mood Mood —an atmosphere readers almost feel— can be evoked by the author's choice of setting. A dark and stormy night—the most clichéd of all literary settings—establishes an eerie mood for ghost tales set in spooky mansions. A bright, sunny afternoon could never achieve the foreboding atmosphere the author wants.

Motivation Characters and their actions can be influenced by the choice of setting. In The Sniper both young men have been forced to take sides and are now fighting against other Irish people.

Theme Themes, or the central ideas of a story, are often reflected in a work's setting. Moby-Dick is set on a whaling ship, a microcosm of society. The ship sails the oceans—a vast, mysterious, unknowable world—suggesting that we cannot truly know the nature of the universe, despite all our knowledge and powers of reason.

Read “ The Sniper”